Black dots on clown Loaches

[chefkeith]

The only other time the clowns had similar black splotches was when the tank leaked and I had to instantly move them to a bucket.

Clownygirl- By any chance, when you moved the clown loaches did they make a stinky smell in the bucket?


Also Clownygirl- TDS meters are usually purchased over the internet. They are mainly used for testing RO water filters for impurities. They are not often used in the fish keeping hobby (yet). So your likely not to find them at most stores unless they sell RO filters.

[clownygirl]

Yes, the water stank, pretty much instantly. But then, it could have also been due to 20 fish living together in a 60 litre bucket???

Will see if I can find any on an Indian website

Meanwhile, do any of you think it's black spot disease and is there any harm in treating them for it? Will Rid Ich work, I dont get Jungle labs here, but I do get Azoo, so I am thinking of going and looking for the meds.

Do you know what parasite causes black spot?

[ckk125]

i use Azoo products here in Malaysia too.

i would try the antibiotics first though.

[doglover_50]

Those definitely are NOT the brown spots from other pictures posted on this brown spot post and the other one I started wondering about it in my clowns.

I did a quick search, and this showed up on the loach forum! No idea about the qualifications of these writers, but the more info, the better!

http://aquaweb.pair.com/forums/archives ... read=14507
http://aquaweb.pair.com/forums/archives ... read=14489
For those too lazy to read, it says: DO NO TREAT BLACK SPOTS!

[chefkeith]

I don't think it's black spot disease. That's a very rare disease for aquaria fish. There is no medical cure for it anyways. It has no way to reproduce in fish tanks, so it's a dead end unless you have birds eating and bathing in your tank.

The reason I asked about the bad smell when you moved them to the bucket is that there is a excellent theory going around here that clown loaches have chemical defenses in there slime coat. The theory is that they can release a toxin when they feel threatened. It stinks awefully bad also. I'm really starting to think that this theoritical toxin is what causes the black spots on clown loaches. It seems voluntary or involuntary on the clown loaches behalf.

Other than the black spots, do all your fish look healthy now. Do any of them have cloudy eyes or ragged fins like the other one did?

[shari2]

Thanks doglover. That first link you provided is the one I was looking for.

Joe loach is 'qualified' I would say, to give advice. I also agree with chefkeith that black spot differs somewhat from what I see in your pics.

Joe used Maracyn to treat his clowns which seemed to work for him. However, there's no available pics and I can't be sure if what he was dealing with is the same as what you are.

What size tank is it and how many clowns do you have? From your pics it looks like you may have a couple of clowns with early stages of fin rot. Keeping up the water quality with partial water changes may be all that's needed to clear that up. How often and how much water do you change?

[clownygirl]

The water quality coming out of the tap is not very good these days. They are doing some work on the pipes, so the last water change was around 7 days ago.

I am however keeping up with 30% water changes weekly. I have been worried about the tail fins shredding, but the fins never get really really ragged. I suspect that the skunk loaches or auratus in the tank are biting the tails off and infection is setting in.

The tank is 79 gallons in size, and I have 20 clowns in there, I know it's overstocked, but they really werent that big until a couple months ago. I have plans to upgrade to a 200 gallon tank by the end of the year.

One of them has a slight haze developing over his eyes, and he is pretty much covered in those brown spots, but they are large. He doesnt have very bad fins, just a small jagged edge here or there. The fellow in the pic who died had some serious problems and just before he died, he was floating upside down and could barely control his swimming.

[clownygirl]

Sorry about the delay in getting back...



Update: Got me some test kits and here are the readings:

PH: 4.5 in clown tank, 6.5 in mbuna tank, 7 in bucket of water sitting around for 4 days ready for water change.

NO2: 0.1

Ammonia: 0.1

After 20% water change with water sitting for 4 days, PH came up to 5.5 in the clown tank.

The next day the clown tank ph came down to 4.5
I did another 20% water changes...waited for 24hrs and tested the ph. Again 4.5.

Daily water changes have been happening still after 24 hrs the ph come back to 4.5

I am pretty sure the low ph is causing the clown's to get fin rot and the brown spots. How do I get this fixed?

The daily water changes do not seem to be helping in lowering the ph.
Would it help if I did a 50% water change?

What if I remove the clowns from this tank and put them into the other tank that has a ph of 6.5?

Will this move, stress the clowns...more than their current situation...?
The move would result in a immediate increase in ph from 4.5 to 6.5

Please advice

[clownygirl]

I have removed all articles from the tank, gravel, pebbles, filter, wood and tested them in water in isolation and the PH always showed up between 6.5 to 7 but the ph of the tank itself keeps dropping to 4.5. After a water change it will go up to 5.5 and then goes back to 4.5 in less than 24 hours.

We do have a slight algae problem, I am going out to try and get some nitrifying bacteria and antibiotics. I have no idea what could be wrong any more.

The same water source is used for the mbuna tank which is at 6.5 and above and completely stable without doing anything

[mikev]

Now that this thread got resurrected: it looks like I joined this unhappy club, one of mine got the black spots too.

I had this animal for a long time, and the spots appeared only recently. This is almost certainly connected to it being moved from one tank to another in March, and I suspect different water chemistry in two tanks is responsible. It feels like an immune reaction to something in the new tank....

Since the main parameters of the two tanks are nearly identical, I'm looking at what is different: the flower base in the new tank right now is the main suspect.

[clownygirl]

The spot or splotches that are showing up with my clowns have been present for over 3 months now. I have lost 2 clowns who had a similar condition around 3 months back.

These splotches of black/brown are quite large and are accompanied with cloudy eye and fin rot.

I got myself the test kit around 2 weeks back and that’s when I realized that the ph was 4.5. Since then I have been doing regular if not daily water changes and the ph still has not gone above 4.5. The conditions of the clowns remain unchanged so I do not know if the water changes are helping.

[chefkeith]

In many cases antibiotics will kill nitrifying bacteria. There are 2 classes of bacteria and antibiotics; gram (-) and gram (+). The gram negative antibiotics will kill nitrifying bacteria.

If you use gram (-) antibiotics, I suggest you treat the fish in a quarantine tank so that you do not harm the filter and substrate.

[chefkeith]

Many of my clowns seemingly got a few black spots again when I moved them to the new river tank. The new tank had all fresh tap water with a slightly lower TDS than the old tank. The difference in TDS was only about 10. TDS changes and other stresses ( like chasing and netting ), seem to be very consistent with the black spots.


clowny girl-
pH is not a good water quality indicator.

The kH along with other acids and alkalines in the water, will dictate the pH. If your pH is low, then your kH is probably low. If your kH is 0, you can throw the pH numbers out the window.

I think you got some good advice about pH on the other thread you started.

Also, I don't know if the spots are related to the cloudy eyes and tail rot. There is definately a problem with fishes immune system though. Treating the sick fish with a wide spectrum antibiotic would be a good idea. You should always move sick fish and treat them in a quarantine tank so that the pathogens don't spread. Be sure not to shock the fish when moving it though. So you'll need to slowly acclimate the fish to the quarantine tank water.

[chefkeith]

Here's a few links for reference about fish meds-

http://www.feamane.org/pages/fish_meds.html

http://www.pets-warehouse.com/Fishmed2.htm

[mikev]

Many of my clowns seemingly got a few black spots again when I moved them to the new river tank. The new tank had all fresh tap water with a slightly lower TDS than the old tank. The difference in TDS was only about 10. TDS changes and other stresses ( like chasing and netting ), seem to be very consistent with the black spots.

Hmm... In my move TDS change was present too (lower in the new river tank), and stress was present in a major way due to circumstances of the move. But I still view the fact that the new tank is planted and has lots of flower base as the most likely reason.